The days of massive boats chugging down the magical Giudecca Canal will soon be a thing of the past

By now, it’s no surprise that locals in Italy’s lagoon city of Venice have some beef with their tourists—all 60,000 of them a day. Over the past year, city officials have funded public relations campaigns to push visitors outside of popular St. Mark’s Square, set up “people-counters” in heavily-trafficked areas like the historic bridges spanning the canal, and banned fast food-style “kebab shops” to preserve the city’s charm.

But the latest move in tackling the city’s over-tourism problem addresses one of its biggest sore spots: massive cruise ships that erode the canal, dispensing thousands of people a day directly into Venice’s historic district. Yesterday, Graziano Delrio, Italy’s transport minister, announced that large cruise ships—defined as those more than 96,000 tons, according to the New York Times—will be banned from Giudecca Canal (which passes by St. Mark’s), and required instead, to dock in the more industrial area of Marghera on the mainland. The decision was approved by local, provincial, and national officials after years of debate and bans that were put in place, then later reversed.

For perspective, Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas, which carries 2,000 passengers, clocks in at 78,491 tons; The Norwegian Star, another boat that goes to Venice, weighs 91,740 tons and houses 2,300 cruisers; and smaller river cruise ships that usually carry between 100 and 300 passengers, like Uniworld’s River Countess, weigh around 3,000 tons.

The decision is a win for local activists, who protested cruise ships in the city’s port last year and even blocked some boats from docking. But the city has also felt outside pressure to ban the big boats. Last summer, the United Nations warned that unless Venice restricted cruise ship access, it would be added to UNESCO’s list of “endangered” World Heritage sites.

While some large ships will still be allowed in Giudecca Canal, Venice’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, sees the decision as a compromise, benefitting the environment, the people of Venice, and the economy—namely “the jobs created by the cruise industry, which we cannot afford to lose,” reports The Local.

For now, Venetians will just have to practice patience for a little bit longer. Delrio said that the new cruise ship route will take about four years to open.